New Chip Designs Compete with Intel's IA-64

Earlier this month at San Jose's annual Microprocessor Forum, major chip
developers AMD, IBM, Compaq and HP revealed their next-generation chip
designs.  Facing off against Intel's IA-64 chip (recently receiving the
official name of "Itanium"), these competitors have evolved different design
strategies in an effort to unseat -- or at least put a dent in the sales of
-- the leader.

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) disclosed it will extend the existing x86
architecture into 64-bit processing in its Sledgehammer CPU, allowing
software developers to keep their existing versions intact.  This is
compared with Intel's IA-64 architecture, which will be essentially a whole
new platform and will require developers to reconfigure their software to
accommodate it.  AMD is betting their strategy will ensure them the
lower-end market in the 64-bit arena.  The Sledgehammer chip will have two
CPUs on the same chip, and will run x86-based code without alteration.

IBM is following a similar path.  Their upcoming Power4 offering will also
utilize two CPUs, sharing a large cache between them, on the same chip.  The
chip will run at speeds of at least 1 GHz.  IBM is also banking on its
customers relishing the idea of not moving to a new architecture.  This chip
is not likely to compete with Intel on the open market, however, as the chip
will only be utilized in IBM machines.

Compaq announced its upcoming EV8 Alpha chip, which will run at speeds of
1.2 to 2 GHz.  This chip will go in a different direction than either IBM or
AMD -- instead of trying to put 2 CPUs on the same chip, the EV8 will use a
method called symmetric multithreading, which allows multiple instructions
to execute at the same time.  According to a Compaq spokesman, this new
technique only adds 5 percent to the area of the chip, while doubling
performance.  (Note that per a recent Compaq announcement, future versions
of Windows, including Windows 2000, will not be supported on the Alpha
chip).  

Intel, meanwhile, has been working hard to ensure there will be a wide array
of ready applications when its Itanium chip hits the market.  In defense of
criticism that Itanium is a new architecture requiring rebuilt applications,
an Intel spokesman said that Itanium will be a new building block upon which
further Itanium generations -- faster and more efficient ones -- can be
built.  64-bit Windows has already been promised to run on Itanium, and it's
a sure bet that many major developers will follow.